Thinner passports make no business sense
Shrinking document a thorn in sides of frequent travellers
— The Harper government has dispatched ministers worldwide — especially to Asia — to shout that Canada is open for business and that the country’s economic future depends on it.
Unfortunately that message has not crossed the Ottawa River to Passport Canada headquarters in Gatineau, Que.
A group of Canadians at a recent meeting of the ThaiCanada Chamber of Commerce were stunned when they discovered that beginning in a few weeks Passport Canada is shrinking the “frequent traveller passports” that most of them travel with to 36 pages from 48.
Once those new passports are issued, Canada will have the distinction of having the thinnest, most quickly exhausted passports in the world.
“Typical bureaucratic myopia,” thundered a Canadian, who does consulting for the UN from Bangkok and often works in the Middle East, when he was informed of the new arrangements.
Equally incredulous was a Canadian who works in Asia for a well-known international television news outfit. Even with a 48-page passport he was already reluctantly forced to often travel on the U.S. passport he was able to get because one of his parents was born there. His current 48-page Canadian passport has often had no room for additional entry and exit stamps and visas after only 12 or 15 months of use. It was a similar story for another Canadian living in Asia and working in the Middle East. Although born and raised in Canada and employed by a Canadian company, he mostly travels on a British passport he is entitled to because one of his grandparents was born there because his Canadian passport almost always has few clean pages left.
Passport Canada has trumpeted the fact that its new passports will be valid for 10 years. Unsaid is that that means Canada has just caught up to other western countries. Having 10 years’ validity will be of no help to those captains of industry, salesmen, oil, construction and aid workers who are constantly on the move.
The upshot of having fewer pages for these folks is that the amount of time they can use their passports is about to be reduced by one-quarter before they have to get new ones while the cost of each new, slimmer passport they are issued will go up by a third or more.
To a commuter stuck on a bus in Toronto or a farmer sowing wheat in Saskatchewan this must sound like whining by a privileged global elite. But other western countries, recognizing the importance of international commerce and how many jobs such “rainmakers” can produce, provide their most constantly-travelling citizens with passports that are far more useful. Americans can get 52-page passports that may be doubled in size with an insert of additional pages. Canada is one of the few western nations that prohibits this.
Furthermore, almost alone among its allies, including the U.S. and Britain, Canada makes it immensely difficult for its citizens to carry two valid passports at the same time. Not having a second passport can have serious consequences for the nearly three million Canadians who live and work overseas as well as for those living in Canada who frequently scramble to find business opportunities overseas. This is because many countries — especially those in the Middle East and Africa — insist on holding on to visa and residency applicants’ passports for weeks during processing. Those travellers without second passports can spend months every year in travel lockdown because their passports are not with them.
Germany, with an exportdriven economy, may understand the issue best. It grants 48-page inserts to its passports and trusts its citizens to carry two or more valid passports at the same time.
The buzz on web forums such as Flyer Talk about the new passports has been strongly negative. “This was so dumb,” one anonymous Canadian wrote. Another concluded that it “doesn’t make sense if there’s no option to add extra pages.”
The problem of Canada’s shrinking passport is well known at embassies in Asia, where expanding trade is supposed to be priority No. 1. Consular officers in three regional capitals physically winced when asked recently about the 36-page passports. The new arrangements could, they acknowledged, complicate the hectic lives of some of Canada’s most dynamic citizens.
Although few Canadian consular officials appear to be aware of it, Canada has apparently slightly relaxed its rules in regards to holding “two valid concurrent passports,” although information about this is practically a national secret. During the 2012-13 fiscal year fewer than 100 duplicate passports were issued, a spokesman said. Most were presumably not for Canada’s busiest travellers but for Canadians visiting the Middle East, where most Arab countries prohibit entry to travellers with Israeli stamps in their passports.
Ottawa’s declared rationale for the 36-page passport — from a choice of between 24 and 48 pages — is to save Canadians money. This explanation is perplexing as Canada has nearly doubled its fees, making its travel documents just about the most expensive in the West.
Producing 72- or 96-page passports or allowing pages to be inserted in existing passports are two possible solutions to the constant travellers’ dilemma. The easiest way forward would be for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, whose department is taking responsibility for passports away from the Department of Foreign Affairs, to make it widely known that those Canadians who require two valid passports to work and live their lives will be able to get them.